Unfortunately, very few senior executives have experience in these telesales-heavy models. To their surprise, businesses often learn that telesales models will drive deals well into six figures. To re-engineer a sales process, a business needs to go through a complete overhaul to crash-proof their business. These are seven key elements that companies need to put in place to run sales efficiently:
- Develop a H.O.T. (High Odds Target) Opportunity Profile that defines your most profitable lifetime value customers. Profile elements can include vertical markets and sub-segments, psychographic elements (such as risk aversion) and specific company and contact criteria.
- Optimize lead generation efforts by starting with your own in-house list. We find these lists are surprisingly under-utilized and can rapidly become stale if there isn't a "drip-irrigation" program for staying in contact with these prospects.
- Think like Hansel and Gretel leaving "bread crumbs" leading to your website and into the sales funnel. We believe that "content is marketing" (if done right). Thanks to Google and a website that is search engine optimized or at least an effective paid search campaign, you can get people to qualify themselves. Valuable analyst reports, whitepapers, buyer guides and the like are frequently used as bait to get someone to register their interest with your business. A well-optimized page can result in two-and-a-half times more leads for every dollar you spend.
- Closely align your marketing team's efforts with sales. Ensure both teams understand and agree on the HOT Opportunity Profile, marketing plans and execution timing so generated leads meet the requirement and aren't discarded by your sales team. This upfront work saves time and money.
- Map the right resources to each step of the sales pipeline. For example, we frequently find that someone who is more of a "farmer" is put into a "hunter" role and visa versa, resulting in sub-optimal sales yield. It is critical to have defined roles for every person on the sales team.
- Appeal to the nervous buyer. A recession can mean more risk-adverse buyers, which may lead to a tendency to go with "safe" solutions. Companies selling emerging products need to do more than ever to build trust by integrating customers into your marketing mix. Recessions mean fewer risk takers and visionaries, so take a lesson from Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm" and use methods that appeal to mainstream pragmatists: industry-specific marketing tactics and solutions; vertical customer references; relevant partnerships and alliances.
- Tightly define each step of the sales process with the corresponding likelihood of closing the deal. Here's an example of the stages in the sales pipeline -- notice that each should have a corresponding set of questions answered or work completed to promote them to the next stage of the pipeline:
- Lead qualify
- Lead promoted to opportunity
- Develop solution
- Remove roadblocks
- Negotiation
- Ask for the order
- Present end close
- Deal closed
- Sell case study
Companies taking the seven steps outlined (above) have consistently reduced their cost of customer acquisition by 50 percent or more. In many cases, we work with organizations that have an expensive field-heavy sales model that will transition to a hybrid field-inside sales model or even pure telesales models. Over the course of several months, their sales process can be overhauled and they can start seeing the benefits just a couple months later. Besides the cost benefits, this also enables these media properties and networks to reach down into the "mid-tail" of advertisers. For networks, it means expanding their customer base. For publishers, not only can they expand their customer base, but it also means selling a higher percentage of inventory at their premium CPM levels as opposed to putting that inventory into lower CPM ad networks and exchanges. One of the lessons of the last Nuclear Winter was that those who acted decisively were able to thrive while those who didn't contracted or shuttered their doors.
History has shown that recessions are a great time to launch new products or gain market advantage for existing products. In fact, 16 of the 30 companies whose stocks make up the Dow started during recessions. Smart companies can thrive even during steep declines if they have the right strategy in place. Better yet, they slingshot out of the recession when it is over as they are well-positioned for long-term success.
Dave Chase is a partner at Altus Alliance.
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